


No Capes

by sorrylatenew



Series: The Captain Vine-Showtimes [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe - The Incredibles (Pixar Movies) Fusion, Confessions, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M, Post Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 14:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15608274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrylatenew/pseuds/sorrylatenew
Summary: Husbands. Dads. Retired superheroes.





	No Capes

**Author's Note:**

> Very tremendous thank you to allthebros, who beta'd for me, read this for my needy ass in 500 word increments, and gave me half the ideas in this thing, including the title, lol. It wouldn't even exist if she hadn't gone to see The Incredibles 2 last month, and then proceed to chatfic with me when I declared I'd read a 1988 version. And thank you to fourfreedoms, for always being willing to preread and give me nice worrdssss. <33333

“I actually feel like a grownup right now.”

Jonny glances up from his menu, watches Patrick give the wine in his glass an exaggerated swirl.

“We’re at Olive Garden.”

The smile Patrick's wearing goes wider, eyes sparked up in amusement. “Gonna front like you’re too bougie for the Garden even with that applesauce on your shirt, eh?”

Jonny smiles back, lifts a hand to scratch along the bridge of his nose with his middle finger.

"Wow. Check, please," Patrick says. "I can't be expected to share a booth with a man who treats his baby daddy like this on Father's Day."

"I'm gonna throw up," Jonny deadpans.

"Aim away from the breadsticks."

They hold each other's gaze then, spend a silent few seconds in a staring match until Patrick breaks, snorts softly and sips at his drink. "Odds the house is burned down when we pull up?" he says as he leans into the cushioned plastic at his back.

"Oh, the couch is gone for sure," Jonny answers easily, but he taps at the home button on his phone as though on autopilot—gets nothing but the lockscreen photo of Patrick and Laura pulling the same face as a crying Alex.

Patrick doesn't call him out, just continues, "Fifty bucks it's the whole living room."

”Hundred it's half the kitchen, too.”

"We could live in the car."

"Dibs on the shed," Jonny says, then sighs, long and heavy, shifts his legs under the table until he makes contact with some part of Pat's. "We're douchebags, aren’t we?"

Patrick clacks his teeth together a few times, drums a beat on the tabletop. "Probably."

"Our kid shoots water from her fingertips."

“To be fair to us, the other one sneezes fire. What if water-girl's gotta shit?"

That startles a laugh out of Jonny's throat, a high one that carries and makes the old lady seated across the aisle throw him a pointed little look. "She's got the monitor."

"Yeah, I can just see that. Laura running down the hallway with her pants around her ankles while Alex kills himself because there's a booger in his nose."

"Christ." Jonny rubs a hand over his face, sighs again. "The hell is it with our kids and fire? Remember when Laura could melt metal?"

"Dark times," Patrick says, with the look of war flashbacks around his eyes.

"I can't believe she's thirteen. Where'd she even get money to get us a gift card?"

"I think Erica. Maybe your mom. Also, technically she's twelve."

"Thirteen in a week."

"We left our lava-snot baby with a twelve-year-old."

"Imagine the obituaries."

Patrick has to cut his laughing response to this off as their server arrives to take their orders, and once the guy's gone again he seems more sober, tongue playing at the corner of his mouth.

"She is good with him," he says, hands clasped together across from Jonny's own. "You see her with those bubbles she does? Around his head? She does it right when she hears that breath he takes before he lets one loose."

"I know." Jonny smiles a little. "She's been teaching herself a lot lately. We're gonna get mold in the basement, she's always got it wet down there." 

"She thinks we don't know what she's doing."

"She'd be really good," Jonny says quietly, and something eases in his nerves about the kids being alone, eases in his stomach at the same time as it clenches up with old hurt.

"She would be."

"Alex, too—god. There's so much you can do with energy shields. And if the fire doesn't go away—" 

"I know."

They've had this conversation before. They’ve had it too many times. What would their names be, if they chose that path? What would they do? What would they be known for? How many lives would they save?

“Doesn’t matter,” Jonny says, quiet again, blankly focusing in on Patrick’s finger circling the rim of his glass. “She knows better. We’ll have to talk to her, make sure she’s not using it at school or—I don’t know.”

“Yeah.”

“Last thing we need is people finding out about the kids. I don’t want anyone on our backs, keeping tabs.”

“No,” Patrick agrees, index finger slipping around and around, switching to his middle, back to index. “You think she would?" he asks. "Use it at school, or, like—outside the house? More than the little stuff or helping with Alex?"

Jonny looks up into his face, meets his eyes. "Did you? When you were thirteen?"

"That was different."

"Yeah, and stupid even then. Now it's illegal."

Patrick passes a hand over the top of his curls, coughs to clear his throat. "It just feels…” he starts, and goes still, drops his arms loosely to his sides. “It feels hypocritical.”

“What does?”

There's a beat, then, “Not letting Laura practice her abilities. Not letting her hone anything.”

Jonny frowns at him, lifts an eyebrow and takes a drink of his water. "It's not like she's not allowed to use them at all."

"You know what I mean."

A strand of unease swirls through Jonny's chest, leaves an unpleasant, lingering tingle. “How’s that hypocritical?” 

Instead of answering right away, Patrick mirrors Jonny’s move from earlier and finds his legs underneath the table. “Alex dumped his oatmeal over my lap this morning,” he says, voice dipped low, gone suddenly soft and measured. “I had to throw in a load of laundry.”

Ah.

The heat starts in Jonny’s ears then, creeps prickling and quick into his neck.

“I just—" Patrick goes on, apologetic. "I checked around the house to see if anything else needed to be washed." He rubs at an eye, wipes something invisible from his chin. "You left your pants in the bathroom.”

He doesn’t have to lay it out any plainer than that. Jonny knows exactly where it's going.

He can picture it in his head very clearly: shower last night after work, Patrick slipping in to feel up his dick a bit while he brushed his teeth, interruption of routine, Laura calling, "Daaaaaaaaad!" periodically from her bedroom, until he wandered in to reach the shoebox in the far upper corner of her closet, give her a little, "Ever hear of getting a chair?"

And then he did—he had. He'd left his pants crumpled up, squashed into the damp tile behind the door. He'd meant to pick them up this morning.

"You don't gotta look like that," Patrick says quickly, eyebrows drawn tight together. "I'm not trying to—put you on the spot—or—" He angles his hips upward, starts reaching his hand down below for his pocket. "I wasn't even gonna bring it up, I just—" And he lays the pouch of seeds out on the table gently. 

It sits there, green and lumpy and incriminating, framed in the yellow light from the grape-patterned lamp over their heads.

Jonny's whole face must be red by now. He doesn't know what to say, feels glued where he sits, eyes locked on his mix. Patrick would've known it the moment his fingers touched it.

"I didn't—" Jonny starts, and swallows. "I like to have it on me—"

"Jon," Patrick interrupts, leaned in as close as he can make himself. "Babe, I'm not mad, I—" But he's cut short once again by the arrival of their server. Jonny watches him give a tight smile and scoop the mix quietly into his lap, out of the way of the soup that takes its place next second, and in the space of time it takes for them to confirm that everything looks good, Jonny's slid into irritation, shoulders tensed up.

"You didn't have to bring it," he says, grip tight on his spoon. "You didn't have to prove it, like I'd try to deny it."

Patrick rolls his head back on his neck. "Babe—"

"What, Pat? You—you carry yours around whether you want to or not—"

"Babe—"

"What the fuck am I supposed to do if something happens on the freeway—or—or, god, anywhere—I wouldn't—"

" _Jonny._ " Patrick reaches across the table, pinches Jonny hard on the arm. "Shut up, I'm not fucking mad. I'm not accusing you of anything."

"Then what're you—" Jonny stops, tries to settle himself, sits up straighter and lets his spoon fall into his bowl. "What do you want then?"

Patrick stares at him for too long a moment, draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "I have targets," he says. "My targets. In the garage."

Jonny blinks at him, frowns again. "You…"

"I never got rid of them. They're in that bin behind the truck. With the paint cans on top."

Realization of what this is slips in with the embarrassment still rushing through Jonny's blood, slips in with its own buzz beside the irritation. "What does it matter," he says slowly, but knows from Patrick's face, knows exactly before he's finished the sentence, "if they're just sitting in the garage?"

Patrick rolls his lips over his teeth, squints an almost-wince. "During the school year, every time we're on opposite shifts," is all he offers up.

Alright.

Well.

The buzz picks up fast under Jonny's skin, all the heat concentrating into something else, something bigger. "We broke our agreement?"

"Well," Patrick says. "All I know for sure about you is you're carrying your mix around, but I also know you, so, I assume." He looks away, then back, eyes a little wary. "Unless I seriously just outed myself for no reason."

Jonny considers letting him think so, just letting him sit in it for a minute to pay for springing this on him, but his heart feels too light, bubbled all the way up and caught in his throat.

"Those trees on Anne Street," he says, tongue almost sloppy around the speed of the words, leg bouncing. "That was me."

The reaction is immediate. Patrick points a vicious finger at him, almost hits him in the nose, grabs at Jonny's sleeve and then points again. "I fucking knew it," he says, voice quiet but harsh with restless excitement. The grin that breaks out over his face looks painful, cheeks all dimpled up. "I fucking _knew_ it. I knew it, you fucking asshole."

"They were a million fucking years old! They were gonna fall! Laura rides her bike there."

"Oh, yeah, _you_ had to do it."

"No one else was going to."

"Uh-huh." 

"They weren't."

"Yep."

"Shut the hell up, Mr. Targets-In-The-Garage."

And, suddenly, neither one of them can stop smiling.

Jonny attempts it, just to see, but his lips refuse to cooperate.

Patrick leans far in again, whispers, "Let's get out of here," eyes big and nervous and sparkling like Jonny hasn't seen in—god. He doesn't know how long.

"Patrick."

"Seriously." He reaches forward and knocks his knuckles against Jonny's hand. "Let's go."

"Where are we supposed to go?" Jonny says, and already knows they're leaving, already feels it all bunched up inside him, pushing to get out.

"Who cares, we'll find somewhere."

"They haven't even brought us our entrées yet."

"Leave a fifty on the table."

"We have a gift card."

"Jonathan. Toews."

Jonny rolls his eyes, still smiling, and reaches behind himself for his wallet. "There's an empty field down by the river," he says as he flips a bill between their bowls, fingers twitching. "Behind that house that's been for sale for-fucking-ever." 

Patrick looks at him like he wants to fuck him, lay him out right there in the middle of a chain restaurant. "That's the shit I like to hear."

***

They drive the car far up over the lawn, park it on the side of the house next to the overgrown shrubbery, invisible from the road until you're right up on it.

It's a dead-end street—no one ever even comes down here, but Jonny still feels sixteen and on the giddy verge of getting caught, stepping out from the driver's-side door like there’s feds in the bushes and parents watching from upstairs windows.

"This is stupid," he says, needlessly hushed, but the grass under his feet already seems more alive here than it had leaving their front yard, the sound in the trees more than just the wind. 

"Very stupid," Patrick agrees when he's climbed out too, vibrating with the same kind of flustered energy.

He wears it well, expression smooth and calm, but Jonny knows his face, knows that smile when Patrick turns it on him, when he picks his way around the hood of the car, puts his hands to Jonny's sides there in the rapidly waning daylight.

Jonny leans into him a little, says, "I feel like I'm about to blow a load in front of my mom," mouth kicking up in the corners when Patrick laughs and groans, clunks his forehead into Jonny's chest.

"I could’ve gone my whole life without that image."

" _You_ could've?"

They stand there together like that, too close for comfort in the humid June air, sweat beading at Jonny's temples, until Patrick leans back again and lifts his eyes to Jonny's face. "I feel weird too," he says, but doesn't look upset about it, only faintly amused with himself. "We've already given each other permission. What's the deal here?"

"It's been a really long time," Jonny whispers.

"Nine years and a month," Patrick whispers back.

God. _God._

It has been. Nine fucking years. Nine years since either of them have let out their full range.

"We are so old."

Patrick snorts quietly, passes a lazy tongue over Jonny's lips, warm and slick. "We're still hot, though."

He dimples as he says it, and Jonny laughs, loves him so much, feels suddenly full of it. "We are pretty hot."

Patrick kisses him again, so so warm, soft and wet and easy. " _I_ still fit into my suit," he says into Jonny’s mouth, fishing.

Jonny takes the bait, happy about it, levels a look at him and lifts an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, it’s just—" Patrick's grip goes lax around Jonny’s waist. "That ass is fat, baby."

And he takes off cackling before Jonny can retaliate, turns only when he's out of range—an impossibility surrounded by all this green, but Jonny lets him have it, grinning himself.

He watches as Patrick digs a hand into his pocket, pulls out Jonny's mix and tosses it across the distance between them.

It's an easy catch, all flexible, no-slip material, designed with his suit in mind but nearly as effective on bare skin. Jonny folds his palm around the familiar weight, heart pounding, feels it humming with life.

“You think you still got it, Captain?” Patrick calls, his hands already illuminated in a dim, bluish glow.

Jonny's stomach swoops, flips over and turns liquid, power crawling in his fingertips, itching in the begging earth at his feet the longer he keeps it waiting.

“You better run,” he answers, and without anything further than that, Patrick does.

The first lick of sensation that twists through Jonny's hands, then, is not something he's forgotten.

He grows daily in their garden, tends to their windowsill herbs, takes care of the lawn—has been too tempted by old trees on old streets, root-disturbed sidewalks, homes and cars in danger of falling branches. But here—now—as he leaps into the ivy blanketed over the side of the house, closes it around his fists, steels it against the weight of his body, lifting himself and springing from there—from the roof—into the oak that shoots up from the acorn he sends out into the air—it's like being taken to the edge of orgasm after a year of celibacy.

He lands on all fours among grasping, swiftly lengthening twigs, puts his forehead to the bark beneath him, and laughs like a yell.

"I'm gonna fucking come in my pants," he gasps to no one—to himself. Almost pushes to his feet and stops, uses the branches to do it, not as smoothly as he remembers being capable of, but fuck. _Fuck._

He hears Patrick's whooping before he sets eyes on him, aches with a savage delight when he streaks by, just a blur of singe marks and fiery blue. Showtime.

"Gimme something, Jonny!" he yells, and they’re twenty-one. Twenty-one and training at the Arena in downtown Chicago—an ice rink now. Twenty-one and living before the ban, before Laura, long before Alex.

Jonny centers himself, positions his feet until it clicks, until the oak feels part of him, an old friend he's been carrying since he was ten. He sees the ground this way, feels the roots, the water, the grass Patrick's burned up. It's like breathing, thinking, eating—to send the grass tangling around him where Patrick stands, watch him shift the glow in his hands into bladed points, whoop again and slice his way out of it.

A reach into his mix and the oak is covered in ivy like the house, twining, twisting leaves and vines to take hold of, swoop down and around to swipe at Patrick with a root underfoot. Pat dodges out of the way, face split in a smile as he cuts it in two with a sizzling disc from his right hand.

"Take me up!" he calls, and Jonny remembers this too—brings up another tree, three more—swinging from one to the other like Tarzan. He laughs at that—that nickname from Sharpy in college—his mind firing in all directions while he moves around the field, lifting roots grown larger than they could do on their own, dips and hills for Patrick to slide on, a dart of shining blue in the dark.

He zips by on Jonny's left, slices through a snap of vine Jonny throws at him from his perch, but barely dodges. "Ohhh, Showtime slipping a little!" Jonny yells to where Patrick's already flown to the opposite side.

"Keep it up, Captain Veggie!" he answers, and Jonny's into his mix for the itch weed and firethorn, laughing as Patrick swears and swerves.

He moves in slacks almost as well as he would in that suit—quick, jumpy bursts of speed, power in his limbs at every change in direction, cutting, zipping explosions of energy in his hands and feet.

They took down the Broad Street Bully this way—bouncing off each other's abilities until he was nothing but a heap in an ugly orange cape.Took down Don Grizzly; Thunderstrike—they prevented car wrecks; saved kids from burning buildings; stopped a hundred people dying from train derailment on the L. It's like it was fucking yesterday.

It's like it was an age ago.

Jonny could do this for hours, even when his arms start to burn quicker than he’s used to. Even when it’s gone so black out that Patrick resembles a group of hyperactive fireflies at a distance.

He senses how badly they’ve decimated the field more than he can see it. Smells the little wisps of smoke from Patrick’s heels in great, panting breaths, blisters cropped up along his fingers without his gloves on, and they still keep going. Covered in dirt, soaked through their clothes, lungs burning—they keep going.

They keep going right up until Patrick misses a step in the reduced visibility, catches the edge of a massive thorn and goes sprawling almost too quick for Jonny to catch him.

He grabs onto him with a snatch of ivy around the waist, reels him in fast and brings him up into the tree Jonny's standing in, the center oak—branches thick enough to hold the weight of both of them.

“Jesus Christ,” Jonny breathes, and goes down on his ass as soon as Patrick’s footing is stabilized—down on his ass and then flopped onto his back in short order, chest heaving.

Patrick keels over, hands to his knees, breath so harsh it’s voiced—half a groan on every exhale.

“Think you mighta overdone the growth there?” he forces out when he can, voice throaty through the exhaustion. 

Jonny has to gather himself to do it, but he rolls onto his side, leans over the edge of their branch to see the ominously red tipped peaks grown close together, laughs a little in panicky relief at not having to scrape Patrick out of spikes as big as their heads.

“Slightly,” he says. “Perhaps.”

“Don’t let your man get pent up, ladies, he’ll try to kill you with flower stems.”

Jonny's panicky laugh goes deeper, and he rolls back over to see Patrick's face, that dark look that Jonny knows the real meaning of is _fond._

"Could be a noble way to go."

"Impaled on my husband's thorn."

"I'll write that on your tombstone."

Patrick shakes his head, laughs and goes down to his knees in a bit of a heap, throws a leg over each side of the branch to scoot forward on his ass. "Your terrible jokes are rubbing off on me, Toews."

"I could make one right there," Jonny says, and twitches his fingers to twist ivy around Patrick's middle again, pick him up and bring him in close, settled between Jonny's legs. "But that one's too easy even for me."

Patrick kisses him, soft as earlier. Lets his eyes fall shut as he sighs into it, hands closed in Jonny's shirtfront.

He's absolutely filthy. Mud streaked across one cheek, hair damp with sweat, the ends of his sleeves a little...toasted.

Jonny remembers this Patrick Kane sneaking in through his window when his housemates were asleep.

"I missed this," he whispers against Patrick's lips, a fast confession, even though Pat's already more than aware.

He missed this. God, he missed this. He hadn't even realized how much.

"I know," Patrick answers without moving away, heartfelt. "Me too."

There's a lot in the air, then. Questions on the tip of Jonny's tongue. What do they do now? Will they come back? Can they come back _tomorrow?_ What will they do as the kids get older? What will they tell Laura tonight when they roll up looking like they hiked to dinner?

"I can see you thinking," Patrick says, still mostly kissing him.

"You can't see anything with your face that close."

"I can feel you thinking," Patrick amends, and Jonny rolls his eyes, wraps arms around Patrick's neck.

"What am I thinking?"

"Not enough about whether or not we've ever fucked in a tree." 

And Jonny doesn't know why that's not what he was expecting. He squeezes his eyes shut, tips his head back and laughs. "You know we have."

Patrick puts a hand to Jonny's chin, tilts his face back where he wants it. "Well look at that," he says, tongue between his teeth. "Here we are. In a tree."


End file.
